Star Wars: The Clone Wars

I hate the hot weather. It's so damn counterproductive. It's muggy as hell here, so I'm going to try to make sense in this review, but don't count on it. If the writing goes a bit doolally, please try and ignore it and be concerned for my mental health.Oh, and since I consider this film a personal attack on many levels, I would skip it if you don't like reading...

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

I normally use this paragraph to profess what a big fan I am of a well-established franchise- it happens a lot, I'm a fan of lots of things. However, the Star Wars films (at least the original trilogy) were an integral part of my childhood. I would watch them over and over again until I knew pretty much every line. The prequels were another matter, but we'll save that argument for another time.

"Master, Stinky is really sick. He's turning every shade of green except the one he's supposed to be."

Jabba the Hutt's son (!) has been kidnapped and the Jedi Council send Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter) to find him. Along the way, Anakin reluctantly picks up a Padawan learner by the name of Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein). The plot is utterly retarded. It reads more like bad fan-fiction than the official 7th Star Wars film. The period of time during the Clone Wars seems rich and full of good story opportunities, so I'm not sure why they went for the uber-hackneyed plot of a kidnapping. The film started off badly by fucking with the classic Star Wars hallmarks. We get a bastardised version of the famous John Williams score and instead of the iconic opening scrawl, we have some cheesy narration. It was horrible. On the other hand, all the voice actors are fine, but I have a really problem with the characters. A new paragraph kinda problem...

I hated the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka. They have a really forced (no pun intended) back and forth which irritated the living piss out of me. He remarks that she's "snippy" and so calls her "Snips", she teases him about his last name so he becomes "Sky Guy". So we're left with a joy vacuum every single time the two are on screen together, which is a lot. Also we have Jabba's son present through most of it who is referred to as "Stinky" (Sigh).

It's not fun taking the piss out of something like The Clone Wars, as it is clearly aimed at younger children. My point is, why dumb it down for a younger audience? The original trilogy wasn't dumbed down and was still accessible to children and adults alike. Every single time Lucas has dumbed things down for the little kiddies (i.e. Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks...) it has always let the film down in some way. Children aren't stupid and babying them isn't going to help their first steps into a wider cinematic world...

I'm not kidding when I say that nearly every character was irritating. The battle droids, C-3PO and even Yoda lost their gloss after a while. The most annoying character by far was Jabba's uncle (!) Ziro, who is a purple, gay version of Jabba with the voice of Truman Capote (y'know- for kids!). Every single second he is on screen made me want to crucify myself.

"Great (!) Rolling death balls."

The last (and final, I promise!) problem I have is the animation style. I loved the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoons but this is something else. The animation is cheap and soulless, which in the era of Pixar films like Wall-E and Ratatouille will not do. I do think that if the film had a good story or dialogue they would have overcome this, but if you've paid any attention to the above, you'll know this is not the case. This is not Star Wars to me, this is an extended trailer for the bound-to-be-awful upcoming CGI Clone Wars TV series. In fact, if you listen carefully at the start and ignore the awful remixed theme I'm pretty sure you'll hear the sound of a cash register ringing and George Lucas rubbing his ill-gotten money all over his stupid, white beard.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The more observant of you will know that Transformers was the first film I ever reviewed on this site. I would normally wax lyrical about how much I'm grown as a reviewer since then and pat my own back, but the fact that I haven't really changed at all depresses me beyond all belief. I know what'll take my mind off all that- giant robots knocking the shit out of each other! Whoo! Fuck yeah!

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

I'm sick of defending Michael Bay. I know he's not exactly the best director in the world, I just admire his enthusiasm for blowing shit up. It's way too easy to bash his directorial style and write page after page of scathing criticism decrying Bay for crimes against cinema. Personally, I think these people are snobs with nothing better to do than to take the piss out of less arty directors with haughty laughs and vitriolic derision. However, Revenge of the Fallen makes it very difficult to argue the case that Bay's films aren't all loud noises and shots of sunsets.

"Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."

Following on from the first Transformers film, the good robots- the Autobots are here on Earth and have joined forces with the military to form NEST- a team created to find and destroy all the hidden baddies- the Decepticons. However, one of the Decepticons they catch warns about "The Fallen" returning before he buys the robo-farm. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBoeuf) is off to college and struggling to keep his relationship going with Mikaela (Megan Fox). I liked the idea that the Autobots were working with the army an' all that and I didn't have a problem with Sam going off to college- it seems like a natural progression. I did have a problem with all the mythical bullshit surrounding The Fallen, however. I don't know why it was so hard to accept, especially given the fact I had no problem with the fact that ALIEN ROBOTS have visited Earth, but I did. I got the feeling that the film was taking itself too seriously which is a fatal mistake when you have aforementioned extraterrestrial automatons arsing about on screen.

For some reason, Michael Bay decided that Transformers wasn't annoying enough, so he beefed up the irritant factor for the sequel. In nearly every review you read you'll come across a mention of "The Twins" - an incredibly irksome pair of metallic twats who do nothing but talk very fast, peppering the speech with liberal swearing. Oh, and they're black stereotypes too. so they're not only annoying but racist to boot. The annoyance doesn't stop there as we have a considerably smaller Decepticon who also brought my blood to a boil. His name is Wheelie and for some reason, he talks like a stereotypical 1930's gangster. He basically comes off as a cross between a robot Chihuahua and a bad Al Capone impersonator.

The action is good, don't misunderstand me, but the sequel has even more "what the fuck is going on?" moments in the kinetic fight sequences due to the addition of more Transformers to pretty much the entire robotic cast of the first film. The only sequences I really enjoyed was Optimus Prime taking on some Decepticons in the forest and Bumblebee's fight with... a bad robot. That's the thing- I can't remember who was fighting who and why, and I normally can recall a considerable amount about a film way after I've seen it.

The effects are still extremely impressive, but some of the novelty has worn off since the first one. Having said that, watching Devastator- a Decepticon formed out of about seven other Decepticons is eye-wateringly good. My mind can't comprehend how they worked that one out. As I said before, there are way too many Transformers in this film (my sources tell me there's around 40 of them) and it's pretty difficult to remember all their names.

"What you are about to see is top secret. Do not tell my mother."

Revenge of the Fallen is not as good as the original Transformers. Some of the charm has worn off and we have way too many robots dicking about on screen to actually get any sense of what's going on. It's also overlong, so you will be looking at your watch during the final 40 mins. Approach with expectations lowered and your brain disengaged and you may enjoy yourself. Just don't come crying to me when you've ground your teeth into a fine powder out of sheer annoyance.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

With my amnesty over, it's back to business for the ol' Popcorn Bucket. So what have I learned from all this? Well, I should try and broaden my horizons a bit, if only to shut my meddlesome "friends" up. Anyway:

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

Kevin Smith has always been one of my favourite directors/actors/writers. The guy's genuinely funny, a great storyteller (if you haven't seen his An Evening With... DVDs you really should seek them out) and you can tell he loves films in general. When I heard the title of his new project, I found it to be very fitting. He's always done comedies with gross-out elements far funnier than 10 American Pies. Plus, comedy hot property Seth Rogen was in it- I hoped this would get Smith the mainstream recognition he deserves. It's just a pity that this is his weakest film.

"I'm a guy. You give me a two popsicle sticks and a rubber band and I'll find a way to fuck it like a filthy MacGyver!"

With the debts mounting and the water cut off , plutonic flatmates Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) resort to a lewd money spinner - recruit their friends and shoot a homegrown porn movie. So long as the sex doesn't get personal, it'll be just fine, right? The plot itself is a good one. Both Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are fine, if not really stretching themselves. There are some funny supporting characters too, with Smith's "hetero life partner" Jason Mewes being especially good. The cameo from Brandon "Superman" Routh was hilarious and gave me a new found respect for the man.

My main problem with the film is that whilst trying to be risqué, Zack and Miri... lacks any real edge. Part of this is due to Smith having his mucky-mouthed comedy crown (undeservedly) stolen by the inexplicably popular Apatow steamroller. Smith's solution? Cast Seth Rogen and most of the regular supporting cast in his film. As a result, the opening scene in the coffee shop feels like a sequel to The 40 Year Old Virgin. As the film progresses, Jeff "Randall in Clerks" Anderson shows up and we're back to Smithian ideals. What irritated me about this film was the fact that Kevin Smith seemed to be trying to be mainstream and Apatow-like, whilst trying to maintain his own identity. I honestly believe that if he had forgotten about all the Apatow nonsense and concentrated on being Kevin Smith with this film, people would have responded to it more favourably than they did. I also wish Jay and Silent Bob were in it, there was no reason for them to be omitted and I think there could have been some fantastic gags if they were included.

"What? Han Solo ain't never had no sex with Princess Leia in the Star War!"

Zack and Miri... isn't a bad film. It's damn funny in places and features some great performances. I loved the way the relationship between Zack and Miri was portrayed. The Smith snappy lines of dialogue were there too, just not enough of them. See it if you want a few dirty chuckles and a good story, just don't expect another Dogma.

Control

Fuck it, I'll finish my film amnesty first and then talk about the mystery second film I was going to review after The Spirit which definitely has nothing to do with people called Zack and Miri making a porno. Anyway- Control.

Control (2007)

I'll admit to not being the biggest Joy Division fan in the world. It's not as if I don't rate them or anything, it's just that I've never thought "Ooh, I know- I'll put on some Joy Division whilst I'm tidying my room" or anything like that. In terms of Ian Curtis, I probably know as much as the next guy, but nothing in-depth, which is why I approached Control with an open mind and a willingness to learn.

"So this is permanence; love-shattered pride. What once was innocence, has turned on its side."

Control is the biopic of Joy Division's frontman Ian Curtis (Sam Riley), following his rise to fame all the way until his tragic suicide at the age of 23. I'll say this now, biopics are often the hardest things to do well. Why? Well, you usually have someone such as the surviving partner and/or relative funding the film and as such, the perspective is skewed somewhat and makes the portrayal of the subject of the biopic either a baby-eating Satanist or the embodiment of Christ. Most recently, the Biggie Smalls biopic Notorious suffered these problems as Biggie's mum was heavily involved in the making of. This may seem off-topic, but shut up and be patient, I'm getting there. My point is, Control doesn't succumb to that, even though Deborah- Curtis' widow was involved. Although the portrayal of him is closer to Jesus H. Curtis than SatIan, I believe this is because Curtis was genuinely a nice guy rather than artistic license.

Sam Riley is perfect as Curtis. He's got everything from the dance moves to the subtle Curtis nuances down. I'd like to congratulate the decision to get him to sing the songs, rather than to dub over the original recording in post-production. This means there is no barrier between the actor playing him and the stage persona and adds to the overall immersion. I couldn't believe how short and tragic Curtis' life was and how serious his epilepsy problem became. I was really drawn into the magical world of fantastic acting and slick black and white visuals. I liked Samatha Morton's turn as Deborah too- she does brilliantly in a role which must have been difficult to do when you have the actual person breathing down your neck.

Curtis' affair with journalist Annik Honoré (Alexandra Maria Lara) was very well handled. I believed that Curtis truly loved both women and struggled to give either one up. I found the scene where Deborah confronts him about Annik to be incredibly realistic and moving, especially when Curtis breaks down into tears after a prolonged bout of silence. It's also very rare to see clinical depression presented so authentically.

Despite all the glowing, shiny words of praise written above, I did have one problem with Control- and that was the fact that I didn't get a sense of how big Joy Division became. Nearly all the songs performed looked like they were sung in some pub on an open mic night. I would have liked to have seen a more accurate representation of the huge fame Joy Division achieved so the audience could better understand the pressures that Curtis was facing.

"Side effects include: drowsiness, apathy, and blurred vision... I'm taking two."

Still, Control is a brilliant film. It definitely educated me in all things Curtis and was unexpectedly moving to boot. See it.

The Spirit

Yes, yes- I will be getting back to the film amnesty soon. It's just that I've seen two films recently that I really want to talk about-the first of those films being The Spirit.

The Spirit (2009)

I was looking forward to The Spirit after seeing the trailer on Youtube many months ago. It looked a lot like Sin City and it was directed by Frank Miller- the creator of 300, Sin City and the harder edge Batman that Christopher Nolan owes a lot to in the huge success of the series reboot. So what are my thoughts on this offering from the golden-plated living God that is Mr. Miller? Erm, it's shit.

"I don't like eggs on my face."

Murdered cop Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht) miraculously comes back to life and chooses the life of the vigilante The Spirit to satisfy the injustice of being deadified. Meanwhile, The Spirit's nemesis, The Octopus (Samuel L. Muthafuckin' Jackson) seems to be embarking on another evil deed involving some chests. It's up to The Spirit to save the day yada yada yada. If this plot summary seems lazy and vague, I assure you it's intentional. Truth be told, the film's plot is just that- lazy and vague. It meanders from one confrontation to another with all the grace and sure-footedness of a drunken toddler. As for the actors, Gabriel Macht was OK as The Spirit. Yes, he was a cardboard cut-out hero but that was the point- he's the chiseled jaw, baddie punchin' hero with kung-fu kick action and 17 points of articulation. Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes are merely used as a great set of breasts and arse respectively, with all meaningful dialogue being poorly disguised filler until the next gratuitous shot of admittedly very nice fleshy globes. Yes, they are parody characters too, but did they really have to be this boring? At least with the character of The Spirit some people got punched in the face. Anyway, what I really want to discuss is Samuel L. Muthafuckin' Jackson's take on The Octopus, a character only represented by a pair of gloves in the comics. In fact, I want to to about it so much I shall start a new paragraph...

He is diabolical. It's genuinely painful to watch someone as cool as Samuel L. embarrass themselves this much. It's hard to see the bulgy eyed, Bible quoting, awesomely afroed hitman from Pulp Fiction leaping around in some mud in a ridiculously large Stetson after smashing a toilet over The Spirit's head. He's what I feared the Joker would be like in The Dark Knight before I watched it- apparently zany and crazy with no likeability. In fact, The Octopus seems like a 60's Batman villain with his silly costumes and over-the-top maniacal laughter. I kept expecting to see the classic Batman sound effect bursts like KAPOW! every time he got hit.

The Spirit actually put me in a bad mood. It's a frustrating film. On one hand, it's visually stunning, although nothing new is done with the style, with nearly all the memorable shots from Sin City being present here. It's also brave in tackling so many elements at once. Is it a thriller? parody? comedy? satire? However, on the other hand these elements are awkward and don't gel at all, giving the film a disjointed feel. One minute, there's a serious occurance then the next there's an arse joke. It's all over the place in terms of tone. There was no set tone, which made it difficult and infuriating viewing.

"I'm gonna kill you all kinds of dead"

The Spirit is an odd film. There are some really good and interesting ideas buried here. It's just the thick layer of shittiness over the top that disguises everything. The visuals are pretty much the only thing I can recommend it for and you've got the far superior Sin City for that. Although the film's strongest feature is its look, I believe that it was a mistake to shoot The Spirit in the Sin City style due to the fact that people will immediately draw comparisons with the Rodriguez flick. I can see why they did it, but people may sit down and watch this expecting the same sort of grit and depth that Sin City had, which definitely isn't the case. All in all, The Spirit is pretty damn shoddy filmmaking.

Terminator Salvation

Time to break my film amnesty to report on the lastest Terminator flick. I will be going back to it, it's just some things need to be said about this one.

Terminator Salvation (2009)

There are three letters that strike fear into the hearts of most film lovers- and they are "McG"- the vowel-less director of this and the Charlie's Angels films. When I heard he was helming a new Terminator film, I immediately made a note to myself to avoid like the plague, swine flu and Paris Hilton combined. However, this changed when I heard Christian "Seriously man, you and me- we're fucking done professionally" Bale was in it. I figured that since he probably didn't need the money after the immense success of The Dark Knight, he chose it based on the strength of the script. Then, the aforementioned outburst leaked all over the 'Net and I thought- "Well, he's pretty mad, there must be some real intensity in the film.". Also, my trusted film mags, Empire and Total Film, gave Salvation four stars apiece. Well, fuck! McG doubts aside, let's see this film! I needn't have hurried.

"This is John Connor. If you are listening to this,you are the resistance."

It's the year 2018. John Connor (Christian Bale) is part of the Resistance waging war on Skynet, which is building the T-800 Terminators he remembers from childhood. But the future he knows is clouded by the arrival of Marcus (Sam Worthington), a stranger haunted by memories of Death Row. Let's just get this straight, I've wanted to see the post-apocalyptic landscape of the future ever since the glimpses of it in the Cameron Terminators. However, I didn't realise that it would be so...boring. Christian Bale is entirely wooden in this film. I don't know if he has a problem with his voice, but it seems that nearly every character he plays these days has to have a ridiculous voice with varying degrees of gruffness. Whatever happened to talking normally? I quite liked Sam Worthington, but he struggled with anything other than the fight scenes. I did however, think that Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese was great though, showing up Bale and Worthington with his genuine ability to act.

As you may know, I have no problem with brainless action films. Sometimes, I just want to go to the cinema, see some well done action sequences, eat a load of popcorn and go home happy. I figured that this would be the case with Salvation. I was wrong. Oh, there's plenty of action but no heart to it. You can't just blow shit up and expect people to be entertained. If anything, you need to try harder because today's audience suffer from a serious case of "seen-it-all-befores" and will probably yawn no matter how big the explosions are. I quite liked the hand-to-hand fighting scenes and the scenes with the Terminator bikes (which are actually called Mototerminators) but that was about it. There were some nice ideas but they are poorly executed.

My finger of blame is pointed at McG, although it's not entirely his fault. I feel that with better direction, the film could have been improved. There were too many moments that took me out of the film. One such bit is the nonsensical scene where John Connor gets in a helicopter to chase down a Skynet ship, there is a huge explosion and it crashes. In the hands of a decent director, this could have looked amazing, despite it making no sense. However, McG keeps the camera inside the helicopter in an effort to make it seem more realistic. It doesn't work. He should have watched Cloverfield- now that's how you do a helicopter crash-disorientating and frightening.

My final point is the all-encompassing question for all of Terminator Fermentation Salvation - why aren't the Terminators scary/ an actual threat? If we harken back to the original, the T-800 was entirely scary and threatening, same with the T-1000 in Judgment Day. Hell, even the T-X in Rise of the Machines had her moments. In Salvation, they're just vaguely comical metal puppets, only taking slightly longer to kill than a hamster would if you were armed with a minigun that fired angry Rottweilers.

"If you're going to point a gun, you'd better be ready to pull the trigger"

It's disappointing as Salvation has its good moments (not to mention nods to the originals- it's nice to know John Connor is still listening to Guns N' Roses' You Could Be Mine after all these years) but they really are few and far between. I'm tempted to say this is the worst Terminator yet, due to the fact that at least Rise of the Machines had a few decent action sequences, but only time will tell with that. Terminally dull.

Pleasantville

With the aforementioned dreaded Uni work done, I can get back to watching films and using this site as a soapbox for all my opinions, no matter how ludicrous and controversial.

Pleasantville (1998)

Go into any local corner shop, supermarket or hide in the bushes outside some old folks' home and you'll hear the same phrases over and over again. "The World's gone to hell" they say, "Wasn't like this in my day" they gab, before stuffing their 5th slice of Madeira cake into their wrinkled, opinionated mouths. Well, Pleasantville takes that idea and takes two modern day teenagers and warps them back to rose-tinted (odd, considering it's black and white) Commie hatin' Americana-era America in an homage to smiley dreck like Leave it to Beaver, a show disappointingly not about what it sounds like.

"I don't know if I ever told you this before, but I think you're just about the keenest girl in the whole school!"

David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are your average 1990's teenagers. He's obsessed with a 1950's show called Pleasantville and she's a massive slag. So far so typical (!) Anyway, some weird shit goes down and both David and Jennifer are sucked into the television and right into David's favourite programme. At first I thought that Pleasantville was going to be a poor man's version of one of my favourite films, The Truman Show, what with both films being fellow 1998 stablemates and dealing with the squeaky clean nature of retro television. However, I was pleasantly surprised when Pleasantville started coming into its own and standing up as a film in its own right. Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon were both fine, with Maguire's performance clearly being one of the main reasons he was cast as everyman nerd Peter Parker in Spider-Man.

Let's just say this. Pleasantville is a beautiful looking film. The black and white aesthetic really works. When the colours start appearing, it is really something to behold, rather than just to passively watch. Let's not forget it wasn't the first film to do this (the first ever instance of colour in black and white being The Battleship Potemkin way back in 1925) and it won't be the last. However, Pleasantville uses the colour to show changing attitudes and social revolution to great effect. The film is all about repression. The repression of women, sex and even anger. Everything's a bit too nicey-nicey in the town of Pleasantville. So much so, it has an underlying creepy element to it. It's like High School Musical without the songs and the irritating little fucksods that mime to them.

The stand-out performance for me was Joan Allen's Betty Parker- the super housewife matriarch of the Parker family who undergoes a transformation from Stepford wife to liberated woman. The film shows us her journey without being too mawkish or vomit-inducing, which is a tough feat these days. Kudos to the film and the lovely Mrs. Allen, who shows a more sensitive side here than she does as dead serious Pamela Landy in the Bourne sequels.

"Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!... Cat?"

I only have two problems with Pleasantville. Firstly, it loses its way a bit around the time that the segregation of the "coloureds" kicks in, going into darker territory when it didn't really need to. The second problem is the ending, which is odd to say the least. I won't spoil it, but the words "cop" and "out" seem to sum it up. I really wish that these two problems were fixed because they're the glaringly obvious dollops of bird shit on an otherwise perfectly shiny Aston Martin. But like the tarnished Aston Martin, no-one in their right mind should refuse a test-drive purely because of some avian arse-drippings. Pleasantville gets the Ben seal of approval and is definitely highly recommended.